Christmas in San Diego

Although we had a nasty leak in our house, we still managed to have a nice Christmas with my family in San Diego. How can you NOT have a wondrous time with beautiful sunny weather where it's warm enough to wear shorts??? My mom really enjoyed that, and it was nice to them to NOT have to wear 5 layers of clothing INSIDE the house to stay warm. :)

On the 23rd, Dave and I took my parents on short tour going from the coast and then inland.

We started off going to Torrey Pines for our favorite hike from beach, up to the cliffs, and then along the cliffs. I was hoping that Dave would be able to spot some dolphins for my parents, but the surf was unusually high and rough. Dave thought there was a swell of some sort. Man, the waves were high, and there were some impressive surfers out there!

So here are some pictures along the hike:

Dad, Mom, and me along some funky wood...
Dad straying from the path to pick a Torrey Pine cone for my mom. They are really beautiful pine cones. Very large and different from the small ones you see out in the Northeast.
Mom and Dad along the cliff
Mom and Dad and pine trees
Walking
Torrey Pines

Cactus attacking Dad
Mom
Cactus amongst the pine trees. Bizarro....
View of the marsh--so wet with all the recent rains!
Monstrous cacti

Mom and Dad with beach and marsh behind them
We then drove them up towards Rancho Santa Fe and then to Escondido to show them potential future living areas. :)

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Christmas Eve-- Dave and I took my parents and my brother to Tom Ham's Lighthouse on Harbor Island for an awesome champagne brunch with fantastic views of the water.

View of San Diego from the Lighthouse.

The Huang family
The Lius and Huangs (hee hee)

Ah, I wish I took some picture of all the food we ate! Omelets made to order, raw oysters (mmm, they were GOOOOD), awesome crab legs, waffles with fresh strawberries and cream (one of my favorites), and all sorts of other goodies, including champagne and fresh squeezed orange juice (which I used to make tasty mimosas!)... Yum yum yum!

We then drove out to Mt. Soledad and then to La Jolla to show my parents the seals and the beautiful walkway. Our other favorite strolling place...

And we saw flocks of pelicans flying all over La Jolla--
These are some pretty cool pictures....

Our baby needs surgery!

Today has been a nightmare.

My brother woke up and found wet carpet in his room (he is staying in our downstairs room). We looked around and found discoloration of the wall near the carpeting in the room, as well as discoloration of the grout surrounding the tile near that wall in the hallway. On the outside, I remained quite calm, but inside I was freaking out! I was worried that there was a leak in the foundation. We had some strong rain that morning, and the leak seemed to be coming UP from the floorboards, not DOWN along the walls. YIKES!

I ran around looking for builder people to harass. Unfortunately, the guys that usually take care of us didn't seem to be around. Thank goodness I had the phone number of some important person in my phone, called and left a message. Unfortunately (again), it was the Friday before Christmas and a bunch of people took the day off, including that guy. BUT fortunately for me, one of the VPs of the company was covering for him AND lives in the neighborhood. In fact, in a house with the same floor plan! He was great. He grabbed a ladder and went up into the attic to crawl around to see if there was a leak in the roof that was dripping down the AC duct (which is right next to the leaky wall). Surprisingly, the roof seemed all dry (but he managed to remove some garbage that construction folks left in our attic). He then went down to stare at the wall some more and we discovered another wet spot along roof of that wall. Whew, he was relieved as this suggests that there may be a leaky pipe in the walls, NOT defective foundation. Since the walls were all wet, he went ahead and started cutting into our walls to look for the pipe. And here are the results of his investigation:

2 big holes in the ceiling of my downstairs hallway

And here's the leaky culprit!

He quickly called the plumber and got them to come over by 1pm. The plumber quickly finished the leak and went on his way. Then the "restoration" guy came to clean up the mess and start drying out the walls and carpet. Apparently, there is a company that the builders hire that take care of this type of mess--they clean it up, patch it up, and restore it back to the way it was. Whew!

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So the restoration guy is cutting out all the "bad" parts of the walls and ceilings. As he cut into the ceiling, he cut some more out, and boom! All this water came pouring down his face. Turns out there was ANOTHER leaky pipe right next to the first one. He kept cutting and taking care of his business, and I ran around looking for the VP to tell him the bad news (and to get the plumber to come back!). Couldn't find him anywhere, so I ended up going to his house and knocking on his door. Boy, I felt very intrusive. But he was cool about it.... I asked him how many people had bugged him at home since he lived right here (He moved in over a year ago). He said before me, only 2 (but one was some annoying guy who kept asking him about security). Ooops! Ha ha ha...

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(By the way, I talked to one of the sales agents about our problem and she said we were really lucky that the VP guy was there to help out. She says he's one of the few who know the houses well inside and out. I guess that's something to be thankful for, huh?)

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Anyways, so here are the final results of the day:

Check out how much has been cut off! He left 2 fans and a Air Scrubber to be on 24/7 until he comes back on Tuesday! TUESDAY! The day after Christmas! Yes, lucky us get to have super annoying fans making a racket in our home for Christmas weekend. Sheesh.

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Hallway wall and ceiling

(with a plastic sheeting separating this area from the rest of the house)

Close-up of Leak #2
Inside the hallway closet (with a big fan)
Hallway floor (with a Air Scrubber, aka gigantic air purifier)
Bedroom floor with a fan drying out the carpeting and wall

Anyways, the plumber came back and fixed our second leak. He said it was a bit surprising because the two leaks were right side by side and in different pipelines (one hot, the other cold). He said that some people at his company are sure going to get in trouble. They keep a log of who works on what part of which house at what time at all times. Dang, I hope whoever screwed my house up gets in big BIG trouble....

Another positive outlook is thank goodness this happened sooner rather than later, so it's still covered under the builders' warranty!

Besides that, we had a nice 10 course banquet meal at a great Chinese restaurant, China Max Seafood, this evening with family. Yum!

Finally, some pictures...

Sorry, it's been so long, but finally here it is!

Merry Christmas from our new home!!!

So, we closed on the 7th and got our keys that evening. Dave and I went over with some blankets and slept on the floor of our first home that very first night. :)

The moving process has been brutal. Dave was busy with Wards, I had a conference to attend (in San Diego, thank goodness!), but we managed to do it slowly but surely. With a gia-normous rental minivan, we managed to cart over most of our apartment belongings the following week and finally gave up our apartment key on the 21st.

So here are some pictures of our new home. I'm only showcasing the living room and dining room/kitchen as those are our "pretty" rooms with all the new furniture. Upstairs is not shown here as the rooms are either empty, messy, or furnished with nasty old furniture that reminds us of the college days. More pics to come when they are ready....

Living room with our tree and awesome new TV

During the day with the curtains up

(uh, my brother and Dad were watching Superman)

Living room (the other side) with our comfy new furniture

Dining table that we had our eyes on for MONTHS

Fish tank has moved to the house! (and into the kitchen)

Am I famous??

Yesterday I was sitting in my rental minivan at the Seaport Village, talking on my cell phone. A group of chicas latinas (tourists?) was walking by.... I noticed they were giggling and looking towards me. One of them quickly ran over to me, stuck her head near mine, and posed for a friend with a camera. I was confused, but looked towards the camera and smiled as well. She ran away with her friends.

I'm a celebrity!
Who knew???

Hmmmmm...
I have been told that I resemble a Taiwanese pop star....

I love pelicans.

For those of you who know me well, or have read down far enough in this blot (click here), know that I pretty much hate pigeons. Well, a few months ago, a good friend sent me a very satisfying clip. Watch it!

I love pelicans.
Good thing San Diego has lots of them.

I also like the Central Park hawks.
I've seen one eat a pigeon in the park before. Ha ha ha...

Images from the walk-thru and closing...

December 5th was the walk-thru for the house. We walked through and pointed out all the minor things that the contractors need to fix. We took some pictures after the walk-thru:

Kitchen

Dining Room
Looking towards the Living Room
This is where the flat screen TV will go
Front Door entrance
1st floor Hallway
1st floor bathroom
Medallion at the front door entrance
Floor of the Master Bathroom
Master bath

Master Bath

One of the bedrooms (Dave modeling how the cat will lie in the sun)
2nd floor bathroom floor
The "tower" room
Looking down the stairs
Exterior

December 7th was our closing!

Some pictures of OUR house

mel's and dave's...

(eateries in San Francisco. never tried them, but couldn't resist taking pictures last December)

Ha! I bet you thought this was going to be another post of house pictures, huh??? :)

Airport Horror Stories

A couple of my most recent experiences (I think I have more, but can't remember them right now). I'm sure if I was a good story-teller, these would be even better. But oh well, you're stuck with me....

Friday 12/1/06 -- A Day of Storms and Cancellations
The weather was highly unstable and turbulent in the Midwest and Northeast. Many flights for Friday were canceled on Thursday night. More flights were canceled or delayed by HOURS on Friday. My flight was at 5:10pm, a direct flight from JFK to San Diego. I kept checking the status throughout the day and it was always "on time". Whew. We boarded on time and was out of the gate by 5:12pm. My thoughts, "Great! I can relax. I'm going to make it home tonight!"

The pilot of the aircraft got on the speaker and told us that the line for take-off was a bit long, but we should be off the ground in 30 minutes. Okay, fine, that's normal. I'm used to that.

Waiting... waiting... around 5:45pm, the plane stills, the engines shut off. What's going on? The pilot gets on the speaker, Uh, JFK is closed and we're not allowed to fly. So we shut down our engines and are waiting for the airport to open up. We haven't been told for how long we'll have to wait.

What?!?

An hour passes... Bored, bored, I'm bored! I call friends, parents, Dave's voicemail. I go through the ASCB meeting schedule (for all 5 days!).. Bored!

Another hour passes. The pilot tells us, We still don't know when we are leaving. Our gateway through the northwest is blocked by bad weather. However, we are approved to fly through a more southerly route.

The plane puts on "The Illusionist" for us to watch. Thank goodness!

Another hour passes... and then it's 9pm. We're ready to go! Yay!... We ended up taking off 4 hours after our departure time. 4 hours! FOUR hours on the tarmac in a crowded plane!!!

The next fear that goes through my head is... will San Diego let us land? The San Diego Airport officially closes at 11:30pm and does not allow any take-offs or arrivals after that time. My neighbor and I (we were both frequence NY-SD fliers) were highly concerned. But as there was no announcement to the contrary during the flight, our fears were eased. We arrived shortly after midnight PST.


Hello, do we have a pilot?
One morning, I was flying out of JFK. Everything was going smoothly... An announcement comes just as we're supposed to take off, "Ladies and gentleman, we are boarded and ready to go. However, we're waiting for our pilot to show up as he's stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike."... We take off 30-45minutes later.


Almost stuck in San Diego...
I had a 11pm flight leaving San Diego. There was an announcement telling us that the previous flight is running late, but we will probably begin boarding at 11pm. My thoughts, okay, fine, no big deal, pilots are good at making up 15-30 minutes. I'll still get to New York on time... Some guy then goes up on the speaker, Passengers, you must board as quickly as possible. Your plane MUST be boarded with the doors closed by 11:30pm or else you will not take off tonight. The airport closes at 11:30pm and any planes still at their gates will be grounded.... Have you ever heard of this? Well, let's just say that was the most efficient boarding process I've ever seen. No one dawdled. Everyone just got on, threw up their bags, and sat down... We got out around 11:20pm.


Supershuttle Nightmare
I was once picked up at 2pm for a 6pm flight (Supershuttle normally picks you up 3hours before, but they showed up early). Due to slacker Supershuttle passengers and really bad traffic, I got to my Terminal at.... 5:30pm!... Good thing I didn't have any bags to check. I RAN to my gate (which was in a different terminal from the one I was dropped off at. And thank goodness I have good sprinting muscles) and made it to the gate with some minutes to spare (albeit, all sweaty and gross).

Random thoughts..

Sheesh, I'm just blogging because Heather's bored with my old post.

I'm so confused with Blogger and Blogger Beta. Why so many kinds? And why aren't I linked? It's annoying to have to log in to 2 different ones to do my blogging. Arg.

Ever heard of a sakerinha? Yum, caipirinha made with sake... pretty good!

My kitty likes to cozy up when it's a bit chilly:


Dave recently had a fishtank fiasco. So he's had to condense his tank. Here are the results... pretty, huh? The fish and coral look pretty happy...

Best Birthday Card Ever!

Thank you, Dai!

At night with lights...

The lights work!